So I finally found a list of people tapped to serve on Mayor Mitch Landrieu’s Education Task Force. As a group they seem pretty firmly in the charter school camp, and I’m not even including Co-Chair Andre Perry in that category even though he’s CEO of the Capital One-UNO Charter Network. Perry has demonstrated that he has a fairly nuanced take on charter schools. He seems to be a fair broker, so let’s call him a solid choice as co-chair of the Task Force.
The other members that seem decent, as far as I can tell, include Brett Bonin (Orleans Parish School Board, District 3), who a charter critic once described as “honorable, has a good heart,” so good for him. There’s a teachers’ union guy. Okay, makes sense. A couple people who work with non-profits focused on early childhood education and disability issues. A guy with the Archdiocese–I have to say, I’m not so down with him, but okay, it’s a Catholic city, I’ll let it pass. Toss in a storyteller, a poet/former council member, and some VP from D’oh Dillard University, and that rounds out the Task Force members without clear ties to charter schools
And now for the Education Task Force members with ties to charter schools:
Sharon Clark, Co-Chair (Principal, Sophie B. Wright Charter School)
Jay Altman (CEO, Second Line Schools, apparently an offshoot or rebranding of First Line Schools).
Carol Asher (Board Director of Renew Charter Management Organization). She has “extensive background in professional marketing and development for non-profit organizations” and “is most well known for her proven record of accomplishment and specialty of converting non-profit charities into productive and accountable business operations.”
Hal Brown (Chairman, New Orleans College Preparatory)
Tiffany Hardrick (Principal, Miller McCoy Academy)
Freddy Kullman (Teacher, KIPP Believe College Prep)
Phyllis Landrieu (Co-Founder and Development Consultant, Early Childhood and Family Learning Foundation–and, oh yeah, she was an Orleans Parish School Board member back when the levees failed who once said: “I say, ‘Thank you, Katrina’ all the time,” because it presented such a golden opportunity to flip schools into charters)
Diana Lewis (Civic activist and community leader–and, oh yeah, she serves on Teach for America’s local advisory board. Teach for America, of course, plays no small role in providing cheap, youthful labor to staff charter schools)
Kira Orange Jones (Executive Director, Teach for America-Greater New Orleans)
Kathy Riedlinger (Principal and CEO, Lusher Charter School)
Caroline Roemer (Executive Director, The LA Public Charter School Association)
Sarah Usdin (President and Founder, New Leaders for New Schools)
Call me a pessimist but I don’t see this Education Task Force endorsing Eli’s suggestion at The Lens that a charter school oversight body be created within the Office of Inspector General or the mayor’s office. Well, maybe an oversight body in the mayor’s office, since it would be fairly easy to make it a toothless entity there.
Posted 3 hours, 6 minutes ago at 9:34 am. Add a comment
Massa has lived with as many as five aides in a Capitol Hill townhouse, and he told the local Evening Tribune last October that the living arrangement stemmed from his refusal to pay junior staffers more than his average college-educated constituent earns.
Posted 16 hours, 54 minutes ago at 7:46 pm. Add a comment
If the model kills people after two years, what do they become after, say, thirteen years? Do they become zombies? Or are they just miserable?
Update: I was wrong about Leslie Jacobs being named to the task force. I’m glad about that but it certainly seems tilted towards charter proponents, in a big way.
Posted 23 hours, 39 minutes ago at 1:02 pm. Add a comment
A leading progressive, Rep. Raul Grijalva, says he’s inclined to vote against health care reform because a few Republican ideas will likely be added to legislation using the reconciliation process. He adds:
And a public option that enjoys great support in the House and up to 30 senators gets left out. That’s something I just don’t understand.
It’s not hard to understand, Raul. Only “up to 30 senators” support the public option. If, say, up to 60 senators supported the public option … but they don’t, at least not yet, so let’s pass what’s on the table and get on with immigration reform, environmental legislation, etc.
Posted 6 days, 21 hours ago at 3:17 pm. Add a comment
Sometimes I laugh at inappropriate moments. I know others do, too. What we laugh it is often an expression of our anxieties and existential dread. I don’t quite get how it all works, but I think it happens when we bump up against events we have difficulty comprehending, no less reconciling. Sometimes people make jokes to deny responsibility, or to drain events of their pain. It can be a dangerous game as most jokes fail.
Then there’s, say, South Park. A brilliant show that pokes everyone in the eye. They make it look easy because they’re so good at it. But along comes some chump on Facebook who thinks cutting humor about sensitive subjects is an easy trick and he quickly adds to the Annals of Jackassery with some lame joke.
Which brings to mind …
But beyond inappropriate humor, there’s inappropriate aesthetic analysis. In this case, an art critic suggests a photograph of 9th Ward devastation following the fed floods of 2005, which seems to reference a German Romantic painting, is “beautiful and wonderful.”
Forgive me for not being appalled.
Is the critic crass? Yes. Wrong? Don’t think so. There’s certainly a clear resemblance between the works in question.
I simply have no difficulty holding these seemingly oppositional ideas–that something horrific can also hold beauty. It’s the stuff of life.
We still have Spike Lee’s Katrina documentary TiVo’d. When it came out we were able to get through about half of it and then we were just overloaded, couldn’t take it anymore. It was too painful. It’s still too painful. I know how one’s intimacy with a horrible experience can make one hyper sensitive. I just don’t think it’s an impulse that needs to be nurtured and amplified.
Simply put, I find it distasteful when folks get worked up over matters of taste.
The USA-Canada gold medal game was good hockey yesterday. Fast, brilliant skating, end to end action, tight. Sure, despite my uneasiness with nationalism in all its forms (except Who Dat Nation, I suppose), I wanted the Americans to win. But I was way okay when the Canadians won, which is probably similar to football fans across the country being happy the Saints won the Superbowl, if only to see New Orleanians so happy. So I’m happy to see the Canadians happy. They deserved to win.
But since I’m a Chicago Blackhawks fan, yesterday’s game was a win-win. Blackhawks winger Patrick Kane assisted on both American goals, while Blackhawks center Jonathan Toews scored the Canadians’ first goal and led all skaters in the Olympic tournament in assists and +/- rating. Blackhawks defensemen Duncan Keith and Brent Seabrook played keys roles for the Canadians. So my team within the teams kicked ass.
The company also reported Friday that the total earnings of Chairman and CEO Ed Rust Jr. fell from $13.66 million in 2008 to $9.44 million last year, largely due to the company’s performance in 2006-08.
Poor bastard.
Posted 1 week, 2 days ago at 11:44 am. Add a comment
